


A Walk in His Garden

by Corehealer



Series: EmetWoL Event - Valentione's Week 2021 [4]
Category: Ascian - Fandom, Final Fantasy XIV, Shadowbringers - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Celestial Bodies, F/M, Flowers, Lectures, Memory, Memory Magic, Other, Roses, Stargazing, True Love, dinner for two, navigation, star magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29495358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corehealer/pseuds/Corehealer
Summary: Entries Five and Six in the EmetWoL Valentione's Week event. For these Valentione's Day prompts, both Flowers and Date, a trip back in time to when Sarah, as Persephone, visited the Words of Halmarut in Hades company. Both of them acting in their capacities as Azem and Emet-Selch, they are spending time taking in the gardens and plant life prior to the beginning of a symposium on Halmarut's form of creation magic.Sarah and Hades reminisce on this as they revisit the gardens in his recreated city, as they walk through the various words of the Akadaemia Anyder and remember their many visits and the work she did here in her own Words of Azem. They visit this place in turn, and then spend the evening on the Anyder roof, enjoying a candlelit dinner and a newly starry sky above the phantom city. All as part of his date day with her.
Relationships: Azem/Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy XIV), Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy XIV)/Original Character(s), Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: EmetWoL Event - Valentione's Week 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155329
Kudos: 2





	A Walk in His Garden

It was midday. Another sunny blue sky over Amaurot. Soft white clouds almost cutting along the tallest spires and curving structures that gave the city its unique silhouette. People going about their daily tasks, walking and talking as they went, with not a care in the world.

The Akadaemia Anyder was especially lively this day, having just begun a week long series of symposiums on the various types of creation magic, as practiced in the Words of the Convocation. The first of these was due to begin soon in Halmarut’s own Words greenhouses, which were looking especially spruced up for the occasion. A tapestry of all the colours of nature, woven into decorative garden plots and fields of wheat and tall trees of every kind.

Halmarut himself was elsewhere, busy preparing for his presentation later that day, but several other members of the Convocation were present to take in the sights whilst mulling over in their minds the final details of their own presentations later in the symposia schedule. Among those now touring the greenhouses and taking in the pleasant sights and smells were two of their number.

Azem, the Traveler, and Emet-Selch, the Angel of Truth.

It hadn’t been terribly long since Persephone had been Ascended to her new position, and despite her first journeys now under her belt and her preparation beforehand, she still felt mildly anxious about the prospect of representing the Words of Azem during these proceedings; her first time doing so. Hades was attempting now to reassure her again that she would do fine.

“ _You’ve done many presentations before. This one will be no different_.”

“But my role is much less straightforward than yours or theirs. What will I talk about?”

“ _Regale them with tales of your journeys, if you’d prefer to avoid a dull rendition of your role’s main purposes_.”

“I haven’t been on very many yet, and I cannot imagine the ones I have been on are all that interesting...”

“ _I believe you underestimate how interesting any journey at all can be for those who have never left this city’s walls, my dear; try adding a dramatic flourish to your last trip to the equatorial jungles. That will surely get the audience’s rapt attention_.”

“If it requires that kind of angle I’d be better off letting you do it for me.”

He scoffed at her briefly before turning his head in kind greeting to several passersby as they said hello to the happy couple.

She began glancing around at the myriad masked faces around them, casually walking in much the same manner as they now did together along the promenades between the gardens. Brass and steel overhangs covered in creeping vines and purple flowers were being brushed aside by a few of the more adventurous souls entering the gardens themselves to sit among the flowerbeds or on the grass underneath the trees.

Despite needing to be here for appearances as part of their duties, the two of them were also attempting to make use of this time as a much needed respite. The last few weeks had been busy ones for their offices, and they had been looking forward to a chance to spend some time together, leisurely taking in the fruits of this place much loved by the denizens of Amaurot.

“ _See anything you’d like to take a closer look at_?”

She scanned the various plots over the crowd, looking to see if anything caught her eye.

A familiar scent caught her attention to her right. Her energy perked up in an instant.

“Ah, they must be ready too! This way!”

An abrupt change of direction. She roughly yanked Emet-Selch by his robe’s hem, almost knocking him off balance and eliciting a brief series of curses as they both made their way quickly in the direction of the sweet smelling plants she was now increasingly remembering from her earlier years.

“I had almost forgotten; he left this plot to one side for their growth, in the shade.”

A bed of roses, now known in honour of her, their creator, as Azem roses for lack of a name given by her. A multitude of blooming white buds, creased through at their tips with pinks and reds, occasionally straining down the petals and onto the stems. Several of those visiting the Words this day milled around nearby in casual discourse, enjoying the smell of these flowers in conjunction with the petunias and daylilies that sat nearby in their own plots.

She leaned down and caressed one of the flowers in her left hand, smiling at it.

“As beautiful as the day I conceived of you, little ones. Halmarut has done well in tending to you.”

An arm around her waist, drawing her back up into his embrace.

“ _As beautiful as their creator, and as sweet as the day I first beheld her, sharing them with all of us. I hope that I have done well in tending to you in turn, my love_?”

She smiled, a bit softer now, and rested her head against his chest.

“Every day, esteemed Emet-Selch. Every single day.”

They chuckled a bit, stealing a quick kiss before anyone could notice.

They then turned to regard the roses for a moment longer and comment on their various states of bloom and colouration. A few minutes passed in the same manner as the crowd continued to move along the walkways and through the fields of greens and autumn tones, before a long clear note from a bell tolled the hour change, and the approach of the symposia’s inaugural presentation.

“ _Shall we_?”

He beckoned her in the direction of the adjacent lecture hall, beginning to fill with souls.

“Hopefully we’ll get a good seat!”

They made their way over.

***

Many thousands of years later, in the recreation of that time and place, Halmarut’s garden was no less a wonder. Imprinted from many visits into Emet-Selch’s recollection, complete with all its smells and flavours, never far from his fond memory of times spent there in the company of his friends. And with her.

This time, it was her recollection that brought this memory back to him, as they now stood together facing that same plot of flowers, and the bed of her roses as they had been. Specifically, as they had been the day prior to the one when the Final Days reached the city, and with a fierce blaze running through the building, burnt to cinders all of these lovely sights and destroyed them forever.

“I remember we were here to attend a lecture of some kind?”

“ _Halmarut’s introduction to the creation symposium, one hosting each Convocation member’s specific expertise in creation magic. An endeavour to encourage more individuals to take up the skill in earnest, and more especially hone it towards the specialized forms it took in each of the Words. Honed to create concepts best suited to the betterment of all, and for the Star’s general wellbeing_.”

“Judging by this garden, I can only imagine his work was especially important.”

“ _Phytobiology, or the creation magic of nurturing land based plants and crops. His Words and his role were ever engaged with ensuring the diverse biospheres of the Star’s landmasses remained nurtured and observed in fine detail, from desert fauna to tundra moss to old growth forests. Very important indeed_.”

He gestured his hands around to the various plots of flowers in this section, beyond those of the Azem roses before them.

“ _Flowers such as these were cared for mainly for beauty’s sake, to fill cities such as Amaurot with tranquil gardens and natural spaces. But a few also found purchase out in the world, as yours did, being of a hardier nature_.”

She smiled, looking down at them. It still fascinated her that such things should exist because of her. To have created an entire species of flower, all on her own.

She kneeled down to take in the flowers at their level, running her hands between several of the closest. They were soft and covered in a light dusting of water, dew laced with tiny nutrient supplements from the Anyder’s sprinkler system high above them.

“I cannot have imagined, when I first saw these growing in Thanalan when I first arrived in Eorzea... that I had a hand in their origination.”

A hand on her shoulder.

“ _Though you were not as avid a creator as some, you did create a few things in your time before the role of Azem kept you too busy to spend much time creating. And of your three most prominent creations, I always found these roses, your first creations, to be the most beautiful. Just like their creator_.”

She smiled, raising back up to his level and looking up at him, smiling down at her.

“I might have thought them at first a gesture for the dead, but looking back on it now, I think I did have at least a little notion to grant them to the living too. And to you most of all.”

A hug, as they thought back on Y’shtola’s earlier recollection of their first meeting. A memory itself coming back to Sarah’s mind more with time spent here in the city’s recreation. She’d visited the recreated Forum earlier that day, and the spot where they had first met in that distant time. It had brought the recollection more into focus.

Now they toured the Anyder at his suggestion, continuing on their path of remembrance. Looking for places within its walls that would bring more back to her, as she desired now.

She released from his arms and put a hand to her chin.

“So, I imagine I also had a presentation to give in this symposia. What was it about?”

He gestured for her to follow him, as they began to walk in the direction of one of the exits.

“ _I shall take you to the Words of Azem, and there, we can see if you can recall for yourself that particular detail_.”

She nodded, and walked alongside him, stealing one last glance back at her bed of roses.

***

They came upon a set of orange rimmed doors, flanked by the banners familiar to her from her office in the Capitol, and from the Convocation meeting chambers. The glyph of her office, in its full brilliance, artistically rendered in cloth and colour.

“ _Here we are. Would you like to do the honours_?”

She approached the doors and with a gentle press, opened the rightmost one. They creaked open, and her eyes and mouth slowly opened wide in awe.

A lecture hall akin to those she had seen in Mitron, Pashtarot, Fandaniel and Lahabrea’s Words, like all those found in the Fourteen’s Words. Here, however, she found a room covered in banners, maps, navigation equipment, rows and rows of desks, complex orreries and telescopes for tracking the movement of celestial bodies. And in the center near the speaking lectern, a fully functional aetheryte, albeit a bit smaller relative to the size of the Ancients.

She immediately ran down the sloped path between the desks and seats, up towards the aetheryte. It felt instantly familiar to her, even as she began to grapple with remembering this element of her role. He casually strode on behind her, beaming at her eagerness to learn. Like a child of the city taking their first visit to the Anyder, as he had done in his youth.

“I must admit, I did not expect to see this here despite it feeling so familiar now that I see it.”

“ _I suppose then that you might enjoy a little lecture on this element of Azem’s role, hero_?”

She nodded at him, eyes still wide and drinking in every single detail of this vast chamber.

“What was the creation magic I oversaw the advancement of?”

He gestured his arms around the room in demonstration, hands pointing to various objects and displays showcasing environments and cities from across the Star.

“ _Periplanology; the creation magic of travel and teleportation. To create the means from which an individual could journey from one end of the Star to the other. Things tied very closely to the Underworld, or Lifestream as you know it now; this particular part of your work often brought you into close collaboration with the Words of Emet-Selch_.”

She smiled again.

“Gods, that must have been convenient then, for us to already be so close even before I took the seat.”

“ _Indeed it was, and oftentimes we would discuss the specifics of such collaboration together in bed, during our quieter nights together. Talking over the coming day's tasks during the times when you were in the city and not on some trip abroad_.”

He pointed up at the aetheryte.

“ _Your Eorzean aetherytes, for example, are distantly based on the designs of ones created by Azems stretching back to the formation of the Convocation. Each created in concert with the Aetherological insights of Emet-Selch, with a little assistance from other Convocation members and researchers_.”

Her jaw now practically hit the floor as she looked up to regard the floating blue crystal, styled as the one in Macarenses was, slowly rotating above them. She imagined now all the times she had made use of the aetheryte networks back on the Source, and how invaluable they were to her.

“So... I made these?”

“ _Not quite. Your time in the role was a bit briefer relative to those others who spent long lifetimes exploring the many facets of your school of creation magic. You had barely had a chance to graze the surface of aetheryte technology when the Final Days began to rear their ugly head on the horizon, and years were taken up in combatting the threat they posed us_.”

Her head sunk now towards the floor, in dejection. Sadness over this long forgotten regret.

“Well, that is, to quote some of my friends back in Ul’dah, a load of piss.”

He chuckled at this, and placed his hand upon her shoulder again in consolation.

“ _Despite this unfortunate circumstance, you did spend many decades in the office of Azem prior to that time. In that earlier period, you did have occasion to bring your talents to full fruition in another, unique aspect of the role. You yourself advanced the art by creating summoning circles of complex form and function, tuned to draw your friends and allies close to you at times of great need_.”

Her ears perked up again, and she began to smile once more. This particular detail was bringing into new clarity her experience of the battle with Elidibus, and her summoning circle. The one she had used to summon her friends from the present time to that place to help her defeat him. The one he had helped to rouse from her through his memory of it in the Azem stone.

Hades continued to speak, as she thought on this.

“ _Additional to all of that, this school of creation also branched out towards creating physical objects to assist with travel by conventional means, as some desired to do and take in the world at a leisurely pace. Objects such as canteens, tents, hiking tools, ice picks and the like. Things you used often in your own work, my dear_.”

He picked up one such object, a sextant, off a nearby display table, and handed it to her. It was covered in numbers and the arcane lettering of the Ancients. Just like with their language, she could innately understand the meaning of the words written. They described how to use the device, and how to optimally adjust it for use at various times of day and night.

“ _This one for example is used to navigate by referencing the celestial bodies relative to the horizon line. Something still used in your day, such as in Limsa Lominsa_.”

She nodded, recalling seeing these many times in the company of friends of hers such as Captain Carvallain and his Krakens.

“ _Among the other Words, Azem was regarded as something of a melting pot of disciplines, working more closely with some over others but drawing from all to assist in both its own work and theirs. Nabriales’ Words worked the most specifically with celestial observation and cataloguing, and so was of particular relevance to pieces such as this_.”

He took the sextant from her and laid it back down on the table, while now gesturing towards a large orrery.

“ _The Nabriales you knew, in our day, worked very closely with you on such projects, including this new, updated orrery. The last to be created prior to the Final Days_.”

She ran her fingers over it, distantly remembering now such conversations and the sound of his laughter in her ears as they quipped jokes about how certain constellations looked like other, more lewd things. Something of a habit of theirs as friends.

To think, she had killed him. Her first successful slaying of an Ascian via the auracite...

A bit oblivious to this sudden change in her mood, Hades continued.

“ _Mitron, Halmarut and several others often had cause to send you out into the world to gather specimens for study or preservation. Others like Lahabrea and Fandaniel had you go out to place creations of theirs into nature and observe how they interacted with the ecosystems they found themselves in_.”

These words brought her back a bit from her sadness again, as she remembered with some fondness the nature of her many journeys, doing work that took her all around the world to help her friends and colleagues. And in doing so, she met more friends who came to be dear to her, and helped them with their own troubles, all on her own.

He paused to let his words sink in, now finding her slowly making her way past him and the aetheryte towards the raised lectern. She walked atop it, and faced out towards the sea of chairs and desks before her, arranged much as they had been in Mitron’s aquarium-esque environment.

“I... remember speaking from this place... many times. To large crowds... and you were always there in attendance.”

He sat himself down in the front row of seats, in the spot he usually had sat in during such presentations, smiling up at her.

“ _I never missed a single one, no matter how busy I was. I always enjoyed your passion, and there were few times when it was more on display than when you took this stage and spoke for all of us. Many of our Convocation peers did likewise. And your friends from the Library, who used these occasions to visit you and see how you were getting on as Azem_.”

She smiled with her left hand running through her hair, to mimic the feeling of the wind outside on that day she’d come here to deliver one such presentation in the company of her former coworkers from the Library.

“Atramandes... always loved coming to these as well, especially since it was a short walk from the Words of Lahabrea to here, after he joined the researchers there...”

Hades nodded.

“ _I never saw you happier than when you were here, in this place, filled with the energy of their presence, and that of our friends on the council. And mine own_.”

He reached his aether out to her now to mimic the experience, and help her along, as she closed her eyes and dreamed along with him. Imagining now this room full of their smiling faces. Just as it had been.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that the room had indeed filled up, with shades. Some of whom appeared to be familiar to her.

She gasped, regarding each of them as they gazed up at her, silent and smiling back. She could not remember many of their names, but she knew them as friends all the same for their masks, their eyes, their souls. A sight now increasingly familiar to her, as her eyes began to remember their former capabilities.

She let loose a solitary pair of tears, and beamed at Hades, who sat still in his spot, but now clapped his hands at her. And as he did, each of the shades began to do similarly, until after a moment the whole room was full of clapping and applause. The cadence of ancient days and their strange tongue filling her ears again with that nostalgic song.

“ _Welcome home, my dear_.”

She brushed the tears away and sighed happily.

“Tis good to be home, Hades...”

***

  
Later in the day, as night began high above on the ocean surface of the Tempest, the both of them came to the garden on the roof of Lahabrea’s Words, having spent bells wandering the Words and remembering them in passing, lingering longest in her own Words. A table, a candlelit dinner, and a hearty conversation, as she remembered her times spent here with fresh perspective.

After a while, the candles burned low, their stomachs became full, and their smiles became fuller. His soul had never felt so light, and her own had never felt so complete, even despite the distance between her prior existence and this sundered one. For all their faults and failings, in this moment, they felt more like their old selves, as if the burdens of the world had never ground them down.

Just for tonight at least, they could be themselves in each other’s company.

“ _And now, my dear, the promised surprise, as Ariadne suggested_.”

Her Valentione’s Day date, this had been and in some sense had become, having been a bit off the cuff on his part. Unplanned, following the wanderings of this woman so dear to his heart, wherever she led him. But now, it was time for something a bit more plotted out.

A snap of his fingers, and the whole sky changed above them. Reminiscent of the times she had parted the primordial Light from the skies of the First. A separation of the teal blue churning of the ocean abyss and the dim light of the surface, giving way to his glamour of the ancient night sky, as it had been the night of their first kiss.

“ _A memory of Cocytus’ garden, and our little meeting on the bench after our lesson on the Underworld. The night sky, just as it was when we kissed for the very first time. A memory dearest to me among all others, forever etched onto my soul. When your heart said yes, and our souls became bound_.”

She rose from her chair at the table, gazing up at the sky as it spread out around them in awe. Far below in other parts of the city, her other loved ones gazed up too, smiling. Luciane had already told them of what he had planned, as well as she knew it, and they had expected it to come at some point tonight. To see it now though took all their breaths away.

Even Elidibus, as he sat at his desk in his office in the Capitol, now rising from his chair to regard it from his window, a smile on his otherwise dour lips. A memory he too could appreciate. He was beginning to appreciate all of this a great deal, the value of Emet-Selch’s insistence on recreating the past.

To live it again and remember those intractable things about it that represented deeper truths about themselves and their shared relationship.

Y’shtola and G’raha were sharing a meal themselves on the balcony of Persephone’s recreated apartment when they saw it, and then, their mouths flew open in tandem as the stars began to re-arrange themselves.

Hades gestured his hands around now, like a painter at a canvas, moving the many coloured lights near and far around on this vast, black palette. Creating words and images in their lights, with one goal in mind. The one that always lit a fire in him like nothing else.

To see her smile.

First, he rendered her face as it had been in the Ancient past. Different in many respects from her current one but familiar in other ways, such as in how the stars captured her eyes and her hair. Next to it, he placed his own visage, much more similar to how it was now but with whiter hair.

After a moment spent enjoying her reaction, he moved the lights around anew, and created her face next to his as they were now, cat ears and all. A large white star atop his forehead to represent the Garlean third eye.

Atop this new arrangement of stars, he wrote a few short words.

‘ _ **Happy Valentione’s Day, my heart. And to all of her hearts as well**_.’

This last bit elicited smiles from each of them as they stood or sat in their various places in the city. Luciane especially, given her own budding relationship with him, smirked up at these lines, and wondered at how she might manage to learn that trick and match his efforts. Her desire to do as he did growing as she drank in these sights and imagined what she would do with similar powers.

Sarah never stopped craning her head up to regard every single light for a good long while, entirely entranced by them as ever she was by night skies. And this one in particular, for both its nostalgic qualities and his own flourishes, had her grinning from ear to ear. Once he had concluded his painting, he rose from his seat and came to stand next to her.

“ _Has our little date proven sufficient to you, my dear_?”

She scoffed a bit and looked over to him finally.

“I bet I could do better, given more time and memory... but it is sufficient, yes. Thank you, esteemed Emet-Selch.”

He nodded, and they both resumed their stargazing. Something they would both be doing a great deal more in days to come.

***

The lights of the city now rose in regard for night to match the sky, and the shades of his creation now began to move about in evening repose, mimicking their ancient lives and tasks. Sarah and Hades began to walk out of the Anyder in the direction of her home and her companions, as Luciane rushed up from the nearby canal to greet them.

“So, when do you plan on teaching me and Sarah that trick, Hades?”

“ _When you get to be my age, perhaps, I’ll think about it_.”

The three of them laughed, and walked along back towards her apartment together, chatting happily.

**Author's Note:**

> As is the case with my formal series shipping Emet-Selch with my Warrior of Light (which this is a seasonal event extension of), I italicize Emet's speech here out of respect and admiration for him and to add definition to his words when he speaks in a scene. Just for clarification.
> 
> With this piece, I attempted to sprinkle in a little bit of what I enjoy doing from time to time; humanizing the lived experiences of the Ancients and their world, and fleshing them out at bit. In particular, exploring the potential roles of the Convocation in relation to each other and their people in the form of the, as I envision it, Fourteen Words of the Akadaemia Anyder. Places we see a little of in game via the dungeon of the same name in 5.0, but here rendered up as every member having a space to advance various forms of creation magic and freely share them with the citizens of the Star.
> 
> In Azem's case, I like to imagine that they advanced the exploration of the same varieties of teleportation magic we are all intimately familiar with via things like aetherytes, but also things like the void portals the Ascians use, or the origins of the summoning circles and magics that G'raha Tia as the Crystal Exarch wielded. The SoS 5.3 summoning circle exemplifies this for me, and I reflect that interpretation now in this work. I'd like to imagine all the members had special things that they did to advance creation magic, and Azem should be no different, even with a more unusual role than most.


End file.
